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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20260828T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20260828T213000
DTSTAMP:20260816T082346Z
CREATED:20260806T102957Z
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UID:50394-1787945400-1787952600@themarkaz.org
SUMMARY:Watermelon Books—Palestine is the Center of the World
DESCRIPTION:Watermelon Books\, Holy Ground\, 4874 W. Adams Blvd\, Los Angeles CA 90016 \nFriday\, 28 August 2026 • 7:30PM \nFree entry\, all welcome\, books available\, along with food\, drinks\, and live music.  \n\nWhen we say\, “Palestine is the center of the world\,” we mean Palestine has become a world rallying cry against war\, occupation\, and apartheid\, and a call for freedom of expression. These days\, it has become the litmus test by which many politicians are judged\, and friendships are measured. As Swedish ecologist Andreas Malm argues\, “the destruction of Palestine is the destruction of the earth.”  \nThe preservation of Palestine as a country\, a people\, and a culture\, with its rich literary history\, is therefore paramount. \nIn this evening designed to create conversation and new friendships\, Jordan Elgrably presents several books curated by The Markaz Review\, the literary arts review for the SWANA region\, including Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader\, which he co-edited with Malu Halasa. He makes the case for Palestine as a central conceit of world literature today\, just as South African literature served as a rallying cry for freedom in the 1980s and early 1990s. \n• \n \nJordan Elgrably is a Franco-American and Moroccan writer and editor\, whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and reviews\, including Apulée\, Salmagundi\, and The Paris Review. He is the editor of Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights 2024) and co-editor with Malu Halasa of Sumūd: a New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories Press 2025). He was the founder and director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001-2020)\, and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Rachel Corrie Conscience and Courage Award from the ADC\, and grants from Open Society Foundations and Hawthornden. The founding editor of The Markaz Review\, today he serves as TMR’s publisher and editor-at-large. \n• \nPerforming on oud is Dimitris Mahlis\, a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Los Angeles. Since coming to LA\, Dimitris’ skills on oud\, guitar and other stringed instruments have led him to a rich variety of performing and recording experiences with some of the best domestic and international artists in the Los Angeles area. In addition to work on film soundtracks\, including Argo\, Dimitris has performed and toured throughout the world with artists such as Perla Batalla\, A.R. Rahman\, Ebi Hamedi\, Dionisis Savopoulos\, Freddie Hubbard\, Thanasis Papakonstantinou\, and Azar Lawrence\, to name but a few. He composes all the original music for his projects including six albums with his duo project Wahid and Protoleia” with the Mahlis-Panos Project\, Prana with the trio Prana and Aphrodite Moves On with his electric guitar-based quartet\, Babaghanoush. These days he performs with The Dimitris Mahlis Trio.
URL:https://themarkaz.org/event/watermelon-books-palestine-is-the-center-of-the-world/
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20260830T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20260830T200000
DTSTAMP:20260727T080258Z
CREATED:20260429T090331Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260727T080258Z
UID:47737-1788116400-1788120000@themarkaz.org
SUMMARY:TMR Book Club Discusses "The Slightest Green" by Sahar Mustafah
DESCRIPTION:We will meet to discuss The Slightest Green by Sahar Mustafah on Sunday\, August 30 at 1 pm EDT/19:00 CET. The author will be in attendance.  \nSign up to join the discussion \nIn the middle of dinner one evening\, Intisar Jaber receives a phone call that will upend her quiet life in Chicago: her father is dying and she must go to Palestine to pay her final respects. But Intisar hasn’t seen or heard from Hafez for nearly two decades\, ever since he abandoned her and her mother to join the resistance. \nAfter a fateful mission\, Hafez was thrown into the notorious Gahana Prison to serve a life sentence—permanently removed from her life. As soon as Intisar arrives in his village of Bayt al-Hawa\, she discovers what it means to be a stranger in her ancestral land\, the inheritance of loss\, and the high price of freedom. \nMeanwhile\, Hafez’s mother Sundus battles to save the home that she built with her husband from thieving hands. Will Intisar\, her estranged granddaughter\, help Sundus fight to reclaim it? Can they close the gaping distance between them before it’s too late? \nPowerfully etched in Sahar Mustafah’s honest and lyrical prose\, The Slightest Green explores the place—and people—we call home and how far we will go to reach them. \nABOUT THE AUTHOR:  \nSahar Mustafah is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants\, an inheritance she explores in her fiction. Her debut novel The Beauty of Your Face was named a 2020 Notable Book and Editor’s Choice by New York Times Book Review and one of Marie Claire Magazine’s 2020 Best Fiction by Women. It was long-listed for the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize\, and was a finalist for the Palestine Book Awards. Her short story “Star of Bethlehem” was awarded the Lawrence Prize for Best Fiction in 2022\, and “Tree of Life” won the 2023 Robert J. DeMott Prize. Her recent fiction is featured in Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction and ‘The View from Gaza’ published in The Massachusetts Review. She was awarded a 2023 Jack Hazard Fellowship from New Literary Project and an Illinois Arts Council Grant. Mustafah writes and teaches outside of Chicago. \n\n\n\n\n\n\nSign up to join the discussion
URL:https://themarkaz.org/event/tmr-book-club-discusses-the-slightest-green-by-sahar-mustafa/
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20260927T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20260927T200000
DTSTAMP:20260429T091625Z
CREATED:20260429T091600Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260429T091625Z
UID:47749-1790535600-1790539200@themarkaz.org
SUMMARY:TMR Book Club Discusses "Floodlines" by Saleem Haddad
DESCRIPTION:We will meet to discuss Floodlines by Saleem Haddad\, online on Sunday\, September 27 at 1 pm EDT/19:00 CET. The author will also be in attendance. \nSign up now to join the discussion \nIn the summer of 2014\, three estranged sisters are drawn back into each other’s orbits through the discovery of their late father’s lost paintings. As Mediha\, Zainab\, and Ishtar lay claim to his legacy—an inheritance laced with exile\, betrayal\, and an Iraq they no longer recognise—Zainab’s son Nizar\, a traumatized war correspondent\, returns to the family fold. As summer bleeds into autumn and the truth about the family paintings unfurls\, Mediha\, Zainab\, and Ishtar are forced to confront the personal and political betrayals that tore their family apart. \nSpanning continents and decades\, Floodlines grapples with legacy\, memory\, and family secrets\, and charts the emotional and political aftershocks of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Inspired by Haddad’s family history\, Floodlines is a contemporary Iraqi epic that explores family\, queerness\, and the disruptive legacies of (neo)colonialism in haunting\, visceral prose. \nABOUT THE AUTHOR:  \nSaleem Haddad was born in Kuwait City to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father. His critically acclaimed first novel\, Guapa (2016)\, was awarded both a Stonewall Honour and the Polari Prize. His writing spans novels\, short stories\, essays\, film\, and television. His directorial debut\, Marco\, premiered in 2019 and was nominated for the Iris Prize for ‘Best British Short Film’. His writing has been supported by institutions such as Yaddo and the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin. His second novel\, Floodlines\, will be published in February 2026. He lives in Lisbon\, with roots in Amman\, Beirut\, and London. \nSign up now to join the discussion
URL:https://themarkaz.org/event/tmr-book-club-discusses-floodlines-by-saleem-haddad/
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20261025T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20261025T200000
DTSTAMP:20260629T102443Z
CREATED:20260629T101911Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260629T102443Z
UID:49319-1792954800-1792958400@themarkaz.org
SUMMARY:TMR Book Club Discusses “The Night is Not for You" by Eman Quotah
DESCRIPTION:The Night is Not for You by Eman Quotah. Published by Run for it\, 2025. (Arab/American/Horror) – 320 pages.  \nWe will meet to discuss the book online on Sunday\, October 25 at 1 pm EDT/19:00 CET.  \nSign up now to join the discussion \nWhen her sense of safety is shattered\, a young girl realizes she must become something untamable—even otherworldly—to find freedom\, in this visceral coming-of-age horror. \nA man’s body is found viciously murdered behind a neighborhood corner store\, sending shockwaves through the tight-knit community. All the victim’s family and bystanders want is to make sense of this brutal crime and move on with their lives. \nAll seven-year-old Layla wants is a pet donkey. To her\, a donkey is the epitome of freedom—the ability to think for herself\, go anywhere by herself\, and live an independent life. \nThe killings continue\, and rumors fly of supposed hoofprints and a woman with hair like black silk. The ambiguous messages in lipstick and sweet smell of perfume at the crime scenes causes the men to suspect the women around them. As Layla’s world unravels\, she realizes she must grow into the type of woman she’s always dreamed of becoming. A woman with sharp instincts. A woman who cannot be tamed. \nABOUT THE AUTHOR:  \nEman Quotah’s debut novel\, Bride of the Sea\, won the Arab American Book Award for fiction. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post\, USA Today\, and many other publications. \n\n\nSign up now to join the discussion
URL:https://themarkaz.org/event/tmr-book-club-discusses-the-night-is-not-for-you-by-eman-quotah/
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20261129T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Helsinki:20261129T200000
DTSTAMP:20260629T102403Z
CREATED:20260629T102129Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260629T102403Z
UID:49323-1795978800-1795982400@themarkaz.org
SUMMARY:TMR Book Club Discusses “Birds in the Rain" by Rana Hanna
DESCRIPTION:Birds in the Rain by Rana Hanna\, published by Bold Story Press — 308 pages. \nWe will meet to discuss the book online on Sunday\, November 29 at 1 pm EDT/19:00 CET. The author will be in attendance.  \nSign up now to join the discussion \nWhen sixteen-year-old Michael Cape disappears on the eve of a devastating war\, only one person\, Marc\, knows his whereabouts. Unfortunately for Michael’s mother Layla\, a young widow still reeling from grief over the death of her husband\, Marc is the one person she was trying to avoid. He’s also the only one who could help her. \nAs Layla and Marc search desperately for Michael\, each dead end forces them to confront their own painful histories. As their relationship unravels\, they have to face and come to terms with their own tumultuous pasts. \nSet against the chaos of the 2006 Lebanese-Israeli war\, Birds in the Rain is a gripping story of love\, loss\, resilience\, and the courage it takes to find hope in the darkest moments. \nABOUT THE AUTHOR:  \nRana Hanna was born in Beirut\, Lebanon and was educated in France and the UK. She holds a Joint Honours in Politics and History from the University of Nottingham and an M.Phil. in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford. Upon graduation Rana worked as a journalist at Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) and in management consultant firm McKinsey and Company. She was the editor of Deloitte’s Middle East Point of View magazine for fifteen years.Since emigrating as a result of the Lebanese Civil War\, Rana has contended with issues of identity and belonging\, specifically in Lebanon. When not writing\, Rana enjoys spending time with her dogs and her adult children. She currently lives between Europe and Lebanon. Birds in the Rain is her first novel. \nSign up now to join the discussion
URL:https://themarkaz.org/event/tmr-book-club-discusses-birds-in-the-rain-by-rana-hanna/
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